60 The Duchess Disappeared Read online

“Yes, it will be just the same way your father fished when he was your age.”

  “Yes!”

  “Yes!”

  “Yes!”

  A dozen questions and, with the difficulty Fiona had in answering them, she might have been talking in an unfamiliar foreign language.

  After they had visited Rollo in the kennels, which they did every morning and Mary-Rose had fed him a titbit from her breakfast, they settled down to some elementary lessons.

  “I want to play the piano, Aunt Fiona.”

  “You must do your arithmetic first, dearest.”

  “Oh why? Sums are so boring. I know my tables.”

  It was a conversation that took place every morning and yet somehow this morning it seemed unfamiliar, just as everything else did.

  Mr. McKeith sent a message to say that at eleven o’clock Donald would be waiting downstairs to take Mary-Rose to the river. There would be a pony for her to ride and one for Fiona.

  Any other day, Fiona thought, she would have been excited at the thought of riding one of the shaggy little Scottish ponies which she knew carried the game out shooting and the stalkers when they had a long way to go before they started their stalk.

  But this morning she felt as though her whole body was numb from the touch of the Duke’s lips.

  All she could feel were his arms imprisoning her and an echo of that strange yet wonderful sensation moving into her throat.

  Because Donald was happy and content to listen to Mary-Rose’s questions about her father, Fiona was free to think her own thoughts.

  When they reached the river, he showed the child how to cast a line.

  He was a willing teacher and, because Mary-Rose was ready to do exactly as he told her, she caught the knack of it very quickly.

  “Look, Aunt Fiona, look at the lovely straight line I am throwing!” she was crying after a little while.

  Then there was wild excitement when she caught a small salmon par.

  It was a very tiny catch, but enough to send Mary-Rose into a fervour of excitement and keep her talking about it all the way home.

  They entered The Castle and Fiona had no idea if the Duke was in the house or was lunching in the dining room.

  Only when Mary-Rose had been put to bed for her rest, still talking about the fish she intended to catch tomorrow and Fiona had returned to the school room, did a servant open the door.

  “His Grace wishes to see you in the library, miss!”

  For a moment it was impossible to answer. Then in a voice that did not sound in the least like her own Fiona said,

  “Please tell His Grace – I will be with him – in a few moments.”

  She would need a few moments, she thought, to compose herself, to think what she could say, to find words in which to explain that she had not been doing what he had suspected but had been on an errand of mercy.

  Yet, why should she explain?

  He had insulted her and she should force an apology from him. How dare he think she was the sort of woman who would behave in such a manner?

  It was, of course, just what his father had suspected of Rosemary and it was obvious that she must expect the same treatment.

  However, she was thankful that she had Jeannie to give evidence as to why he had found her out of her bedroom!

  Mrs. Meredith had told her first thing this morning that Jeannie was better and, when Fiona went to see her, she found, as she had hoped, that the fever was broken.

  “I will come and see her again this afternoon,” Fiona had promised Mrs. Meredith.

  “She looks better, miss, she does really,” the housekeeper replied. Those herbs of yourn must be wonderful – real magic, as her Ladyship’d say.”

  Fiona hesitated a moment.

  “I hope if she says that she is joking, Mrs. Meredith. There is no magic in herbs, as you well know. Just common sense.”

  “I knows that, miss,” Mrs. Meredith replied, “and don’t you take any notice of her Ladyship’s carryings on!”

  Fiona looked at the housekeeper enquiringly as she added,

  “You’re too pretty for the task you’ve set yourself, miss and that’s the truth. It’s married you should be with a husband to fight your battles for you.”

  Fiona laughed.

  “I hope I can fight my own battles, Mrs. Meredith.”

  “A man’s awful handy at times,” Mrs. Meredith retorted.

  It suddenly struck Fiona that that was what she wanted now – a man to fight her battles for her. A man to explain to the Duke that she had not been behaving immorally as he had obviously suspected.

  ‘How dare he?’ she asked herself.

  Fiona tried to hate him as she had done ever since she had arrived at The Castle, but somehow it was impossible.

  She could never afterwards remember how she found her way down the long passage that led to the top of the stairs.

  On one side of a wide landing there was the drawing room and on the other side to the left of the dining room was the library.

  It was an extremely impressive room, lined from floor to ceiling with books, but, as Fiona walked into it, she had eyes only for the man waiting for her.

  He was standing in front of the fireplace at the far end and she knew that she had a long way to walk towards him.

  She felt her heart begin to beat violently in her breast and after one quick look she could only lower her eyes and her lashes were dark against her pale cheeks.

  It was ridiculous, absurd, but she realised that she was trembling and somehow, without her willing them to do so, her feet were carrying her to him.

  ‘I have to make him understand – I have to explain,’ she kept thinking.

  Then she was in front of him and, without even raising her eyes, she was vividly conscious of his presence.

  ‘I must curtsey,’ she thought, ‘then I must begin to explain – ’

  But before she could move, before she could speak, the Duke said in a voice that she barely recognised,

  “I want to apologise. You must forgive me.”

  Chapter Five

  It seemed as if a very long time passed before Fiona could raise her eyes and look up at the Duke.

  Then the expression she saw on his face made her draw in her breath.

  “I have no excuse,” he said, still in the low voice he had used before, “except that you drove me insane with jealousy and I thought in my madness that you had been with Torquil.”

  “How could you – think – such a – thing?” Fiona stammered.

  She meant to sound angry, but her voice seemed only breathless.

  “I told you that I was insane,” the Duke replied.

  As they stood looking at each other, Fiona thought that she was looking at a stranger and yet at the same time their minds were so attuned that there was no need for explanations, no need for apologies.

  “Forgive me,” the Duke repeated.

  Then, before she could reply, he added,

  “What are we to do about us? Tell me, for I have lain awake all night fighting against my anger. Now I know how despicably I behaved, but I still have found no solution to the problem.”

  Because she was bewildered and did not know what to say, Fiona felt that she must go back to the beginning and clear away what he had believed about her before they progressed any further.

  “You know – now,” she asked, “that I had been – trying to help – Jeannie?”

  “Mrs. Meredith told me this morning how miraculously your herbs had worked. I then realised what a fool I had made of myself.”

  He looked into her eyes as he said,

  “But I would not have it otherwise. When I kissed you, I found myself in Heaven after being in Hell for so long that I did not recognise that there was any other existence for me.”

  “I only learnt – yesterday of the – terrible suspicions that are – directed against– you,” Fiona said hesitatingly.

  “Torquil told you, I suppose,” the Duke said sharply.


  She thought his tone was critical and she answered,

  “He thought I – ought to know because I – questioned him as to why – you were so – isolated here.”

  “And when he told you, what did you feel?”

  She knew that there was a depth of feeling behind the question, which made her answer in all sincerity,

  “I was – sorry, so very – sorry.”

  “I don’t want your pity!”

  “I am not offering you that. The Earl believes in you.”

  “And you?”

  Fiona looked into his eyes and knew the truth.

  “I know that you could not commit murder.”

  The Duke gave a sound that was a cry of triumph and put out his arms. Then, as if with a superhuman effort, he dropped them again.

  “Do you really believe in me?” he asked.

  Fiona nodded.

  For the moment she could not trust herself to speak.

  “Then nothing else matters,” he said. “But you still have not answered my question. What can we do about us?”

  Fiona made a helpless little gesture.

  “What can we do?”

  The Duke took a deep breath before he declared,

  “You know if it was possible I would ask you to marry me.”

  Fiona felt as if the whole room was suddenly flooded with sunlight.

  Then because the intensity of his voice left her with no words in which to reply, she merely looked at the Duke. Their eyes were held by each other’s and she felt herself quiver.

  It was as if he was kissing her again, as if he had evoked again that strange rapturous sensation she had felt the night before.

  They were enchanted, held by a spell that enveloped them to the point where everything was forgotten except themselves and there were no horrifying suspicions and no longer a background of feuds and cruelty.

  There was only a man and a woman who were caught up in something so primitive and yet so divine that nothing was of any consequence except that they belonged to each other.

  “I knew the moment I saw you,” the Duke said in a voice that shook.

  “What – did you – know?”

  “That I loved you!”

  “How could you have – known that? I was – hating you.”

  “I was aware of what you felt and I understood why. I had hated myself far more bitterly than you ever could, since I had learnt of Ian’s death.”

  Fiona looked at him in surprise and he carried on,

  “I wanted to tell you, I wanted to explain ever since you came to The Castle. I suppose it was my pride that prevented me from doing so and in a way I wanted you to hate me.”

  Fiona looked perplexed and he smiled.

  It illuminated his face, sweeping away the bitterness and the cynical lines that made him look older than his years.

  “You hated me before you saw me,” he said, “and I would have hated you if I had known of your existence.”

  “It was what I – expected.”

  “Then you walked into this room and I saw that you looked like an older replica of Mary-Rose, lovely like a shaft of sunlight against the darkness which has encompassed me for so long. I felt in that moment as if my whole world had turned topsy-turvy!”

  “Can that be – true?”

  “Come and sit down and I will tell you about it,” the Duke suggested.

  She had not moved from the spot where she had stopped to face him and now, feeling dazed, she looked round for somewhere to sit, then felt the Duke’s hand on her arm, guiding her towards the sofa.

  At the touch of him, she felt a streak like lightning flash through her. It made her draw in her breath and she sensed that he felt the same.

  His eyes sought hers before he asked,

  ‘How can we fight against that?”

  Fiona sank down on the sofa, feeling, as she did so, as if her legs would no longer have supported her. The Duke sat beside her, turning his body to face her, his arm resting along the back of the sofa.

  “I want to tell you about my behaviour to Ian,” he began, “because I cannot bear to think that I should ever see again the hatred that was in your eyes the first time you looked at me.”

  “I thought you were – cruel and – unjust.”

  “I knew that and yet I believed there was nothing I could do.”

  “Explain it to me – please,” Fiona asked.

  “When Ian wrote to my father to say that he was to be married to a woman who had appeared in public and taken money for doing so, I suppose, if I am honest, I was almost as shocked as he was.”

  “It was because we needed – money to pay for my father’s – illness.”

  “The idea of play-actresses being wicked was so deeply ingrained in my father’s mind,” the Duke said, “that it was impossible for him to differentiate between an actress and a musician. But I should have known better.”

  He paused before he continued,

  “After the initial shock of Ian marrying anybody, especially a woman who was not Scottish, I think I should have written to him or, if I had been able, gone South to see him.”

  “You could not do that?” Fiona questioned.

  “My father would have killed me if I had told him that that was what I intended to do and, when he learnt that Ian had actually married, he became so angry that if it had been possible I think he would have exercised the ancient Chieftain’s right of life and death over his family and his followers and had him executed.”

  “It seems – extraordinary!” Fiona murmured. “But I suppose I can understand a – little of what he – felt.”

  “It would be impossible for you to do so,” the Duke answered, “unless you had lived in the tightly knit community of a Scottish Clan like ours, who have kept aloof even from other Clans.”

  “But when your father died,” Fiona asked, “could you not then have got in – touch with Ian?”

  “That was, of course, what I had intended to do,” the Duke said. “Ian and I had been so close and had meant so much to each other that I believed he would understand that as long as my father was alive it was impossible for me to defy the old man, even for someone I loved.”

  “But what – happened?” Fiona asked.

  “I suppose members of a family are sometimes so closely attuned to each other that they are perceptive enough to read each other’s thoughts. My father must have sensed what I intended to do.”

  There was a pause and after a moment Fiona asked again,

  “What – happened?”

  “On his death bed my father made me swear on the dirk, the most solemn and sacred vow any Scotsman can take, that I would not get in touch with Ian.”

  “Oh no!”

  “I hesitated before I did as he asked,” the Duke went on. “Then somehow, with a sense of his authority over me, which I had known all my life, I capitulated, partly because he was dying and partly because whatever his faults, I genuinely revered and admired him.”

  “It must have been difficult for you.”

  “I made one mental reservation,” the Duke continued. “I felt obliged to keep my vow, but I told myself that if ever Ian tried to be in touch with me, that would not have been of my conniving and I could therefore respond to him.”

  Fiona clasped her hands together.

  “If only he had known! He waited, longing to hear from you, finding it hard to believe that you would – ostracise him as his father had done.”

  “Should I have broken my vow?”

  The question was sudden, and Fiona knew by the way the Duke spoke that her answer was very important to him.

  For a moment she did not reply. She knew he was tense, waiting to hear her condemn him as she had done for so long, not knowing the facts.

  Then she said quietly,

  “Knowing how much the ideals and the traditions of the Clan mean to a man like you, I don’t think it possible for you to have broken a vow made in such circumstances.”

  She saw the relief in the
Duke’s eyes before he cried,

  “It is what I expected you to reply. Oh, my darling, how can you be everything that I admire and revere in life, not only your beauty but your character and your understanding!”

  Fiona put up her hands in a little gesture as if to protect herself from him.

  “You must – not say such – things. We were talking of Ian. I only wish that he could have understood the – situation. It would have made him very much – happier.”

  “If he had known, he would have understood,” the Duke said. “Our father was to both of us not only a paternal figure, he was also our Chieftain. We did whatever he asked of us, believing that to disobey was an act of treachery.”

  Fiona smiled.

  “And yet Ian, knowing that, married my sister because he loved her.”

  “That was something I never understood until now, but you have shown me that love is stronger than the allegiance of blood, stronger than a thousand years of tradition.”

  Fiona looked away from him.

  “I am not sure you should say that,” she said. “I am beginning to understand how important your position is. To me it is another world, but it is one in which you reign supreme.”

  “Not supreme,” the Duke said. “I doubt if the Clan trusts me as they trusted my father.”

  “How can – anyone think you – guilty of such a crime?” Fiona asked.

  “The Rannocks would fight and die for me,” the Duke said simply. “They would follow me wherever I chose to lead them. But I know that many of those around me question whether my wife’s disappearance was not of my contriving.”

  “I think that is only your opinion.”

  “I naturally could not speak of such things to anyone else!”

  “I have seen the expression,” Fiona said, “in the eyes of the men and women in The Castle and I think that they, like the Earl, know you are incapable – of doing anything dishonourable or wicked.”

  As if he could not help himself, the Duke reached out and took her hand and raised it to his lips.

  “Thank you,” he sighed. “I told you that you are a shaft of sunlight and now you have given me a light in my heart that has not been there for many years.”

  Fiona felt herself tremble not only at what he said but because his lips had touched her hand.